Lead Generation Mistakes Companies Still Make

Every successful sale starts with lead generation. Buying leads is never going to yield the same results as organic leads, but it can be tough to get your design and marketing just right. The effort should not be abandoned, however, since valuable leads help a sales team thrive.

Difficult or not, generating leads is and will remain a high priority for marketers in the years to come. Finding the balance between quality and quantity for leads needs a well thought-out strategy. Here are some of the common lead generation mistakes that you should consider with your internal and external teams while developing your plan for success.

Design Mistakes

It’s said that you only get one shot at a first impression, and for lead generation, that first impression is going to hinge on the design of your landing pages. Well, to be fair the first impression really starts with the page load. If your website design doesn’t allow for fast and full page loading, you’ll lose your sale before it even becomes a lead. Your landing pages should also carry over your brand’s overall look and feel. Stay away from gimmicky trends that will confuse your audience about who your brand is and what they have to offer.

Keep the design of your landing pages consistent, and follow these basic guidelines:

Keep your form above the page fold

Don’t muck up your lead generation process with too many points for conversion

Don’t busy up your landing pages with a bunch of competing content

Don’t hide your call to action

Messaging Mistakes

Your internal research, paired with expert recommendations from your digital marketing agency, should help you craft the right messages for the right audiences. Despite having more access than ever before to all kinds of data, marketers still struggle to find the right message. Here are a few mistakes that marketers make with their lead generation messages:

Ignoring pain points. You should be working with your sales team to identify the pain points in the industry, and you should be using those pain points in your messages. Call out how your product or service can solve those pain points. Sure, you want to talk about your features and benefits, but you need to weave those around a story about how you’ll solve a problem.

Forgetting to nurture leads. Your messaging should be changing as your leads move through your funnel. If you just bombard them with a constant “buy now” message, you’re missing a valuable opportunity to educate your leads and turn them into loyal, long-term customers.

Offering nothing. If you want your leads to give up their professional or personal contact information, you need to be willing to offer them something of value in return – for free. Go through your blog and webinar archives and recycle the content into an eBook or a highlights video with tips and tricks.

Form Mistakes

Once your leads are impressed enough with your web design and the value you are offering them in return for their information, you still aren’t home free. Your landing page form is still a point of contact that can make or break your lead generation. Do some A/B testing to find the right balance for your forms, but in general, try to keep them short by prioritizing the information that will be most important for your sales team.